


For You

by TheFierceBeast



Series: City on Fire [1]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Caring Harvey Bullock, Domestic Chores, Food, Food Issues, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Frustration, Gordlock - Freeform, Gotham is for lovers, Idiots in Love, Lectures, M/M, Mutual Pining, Of course there's a Twinkies tag, Saint Jim Gordon, Season/Series 05, Self-Sacrifice, Snacks & Snack Food, Stiff Upper Lip, Stubborn Jim Gordon, Twinkies, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 07:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17442170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFierceBeast/pseuds/TheFierceBeast
Summary: "They're all living off adrenaline, now. Harvey would say hope and adrenaline, but most days hope feels in short supply, too. It's a dogged sense of duty that keeps him wading on through this mire. Duty, and the inability to picture being anywhere that isn't at Jim Gordon's side."Written post S05E02, mild spoilers for series up til that point.Harvey has had enough and gets stern with Jim over his flippant lack of self-care. Their UST can be seen from space.





	For You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feurio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feurio/gifts).



> CW: this fic deals with Jim not eating properly.

They're all living off adrenaline, now. Harvey would say hope and adrenaline, but most days hope feels in short supply, too. It's a dogged sense of duty that keeps him wading on through this mire. Duty, and the inability to picture being anywhere that isn't at Jim Gordon's side.

Mostly, he just feels afraid. That ever-present, nerve-grating anxiety that becomes default setting when you're a Gotham cop. Except the booze ran out months ago and he handed in his pain pills to the precinct sick bay back at the start of this, when it'd seemed like the right thing to do. Now there's no dulling it; nothing between him and the yawning chasm of chaos that this city's slowly sliding into. Nothing but Jim Gordon.

 

“Knock, knock.” Harvey loiters in the doorway. Crosses his arms and waits for Jim to look up from what he’s doing. “It's lunchtime.”  
Jim flashes him a smile that looks thin at the edges, the strain showing around his eyes. “I'm OK, thanks Harv.”

Harvey shakes his head. Watches Jim spritz water onto the shirt laid out beneath him, the precision with which he wields an iron the exact same as how he handles a gun.

“The world is falling to pieces and you're still pressing your uniform.” Harvey leans his head against the doorframe, closes his eyes and wills it all away. He’s exhausted. They all are. Exhausted and frustrated and frayed. Not to mention hungry. Oh, boy, is he hungry.

“We have to keep up appearances.” Jim says, all business as usual. “This place, the force, is the only semblance of normality those people out there have these days.”

“Fine. Just, come and eat.”

When he opens his eyes, it’s to Jim shaking his head. “I'm not hungry.” He looks purposefully down at the shirt he’s pressing. “Give my ration to someone who needs it. One of the kids.”

“I know what you're doing.”

“I'm not doing anything. I'm not hungry.”

He’s still not looking Harvey in the eye. Harvey sighs, deep. Takes a step into the room. “Don't make me do this, Jim.”

That gets a reaction. The sharp tip up of his chin, blue eyes flashing, on alert. “Do what?”

“OK, so do not judge me.” Holding his hands up in – what? Surrender? Harvey ambles closer. “This past few months - I can't get drunk, can't get laid, Hell I can't even get a pizza. Everything that made this lousy life halfway bearable's gone.” _Except for you_. Jim’s eyes are as wide now as if Harvey had said that out loud. He takes a breath. “So, I've been saving this. My last pick-me-up.” He holds up what he had hidden in his coat pocket. “But if you won't eat your rations, at least eat this, for me?”

He doesn’t think anyone has ever looked at a Twinkie with quite as much outraged disdain as Jim Gordon is right now. “You've been stashing snacks?” The accusation in his tone is palpable. That affronted righteousness of which Harvey has too often been on the receiving end.

It’s enough to rile him into pointing an accusing finger of his own. “Hey, screw you! Don't you give me that pissy look of yours. Everyone gets rations. And if there's anyone needs extra in this camp, it's the cops who are defending it. We're the ones doing all the hard graft.”

Jim sets the iron down with icy calm that doesn’t reach his eyes. Squares up, in that familiar way that always gets Harvey’s blood up. “It's our job. We don't deserve any more than anyone else.”

“And we're getting no more than anyone else! A few freakin' cakes makes no difference. And you ain't no good to anyone if you're starving yourself. It's not self-sacrifice, it's self-sabotage.” He sees Jim open his mouth to argue, but Harvey’s on a roll, weeks of pent-up frustration venting itself. “These people might be sayin’ you're a hero, and that may be true. But you're reckless. I know it, you damn well know it. And when you endanger yourself you put them in danger. You put me in danger. I almost died out there, saving those kids. And so we succeeded. What did it start? Just cos _you_ wanna give and give until you finally feel you've given enough. I got news for you Jim, there ain't no Valhalla. There's just alive, or dead. And those people out there, they got a lot better chance with you still alive.” His voice falters, as he gazes at Jim’s face, wide-eyed. “Hell, I prefer you alive.”

At some point during his rant, Harvey’s hand has strayed, by habit, to Jim’s shoulder. His thumb resting against Jim’s neck. He pulls back, like it burns. “Are you gonna eat the damn Twinkie or do I gotta hold you down and shove it down your throat?” God, but that came out all wrong. Made his mind stray down all sorts of familiar, dangerous paths. And Jim is still staring at him, in that way that Harvey can’t tell if he’s about to storm out, or maybe punch him. “So help me, Jim, I mean it.” His voice comes out in a whisper, anger spent.

He flinches as Jim reaches out. Snatches the packet from his hands and tears open the wrapper. “There.” He takes the smallest, most fastidious bite that Harvey has ever seen applied to junk food. “You do realise this has no nutritional value?”

“Humour me.” Harvey folds his arms. Waits.

Jim sighs. And Harvey kinda hates himself for it, but the sight of James Gordon licking cream from the centre of a snack cake is pleasing him for more reasons than just seeing Jim actually eat something. When he stuffs the last inch into his mouth and sucks his fingertips clean, it doesn’t help much, either: Harvey’s feeling a bit light-headed and it’s not just the lack of food on half rations. Jim balls the wrapper, throwing it ineffectually against Harvey’s chest and narrowing his eyes.

“Are you satisfied now?”

“Yeah. For now.” He’s not sure why, but he stoops to retrieve the discarded packet, and Heaven help him if looking up at Jim from where he’s kneeling at his feet isn’t his ideal place in life. “But from now on, you eat at every meal, you hear me? Every meal.”

“Or you'll what? Hold me down?”

Harvey freezes, right where he is, still on his knees. And they’re holding each other’s gaze for too long for any kind of decorum or miscommunication. Harvey clears his throat and gets, hurriedly, to his feet, shoving the Twinkie wrapper in his pants pocket. “Just. Quit being an asshole and start takin' care of yourself. For me.”

“For you?” Jim says, quietly. His gaze is still locked, uncompromising, with Harvey’s. It’s enough to make the back of Harvey’s neck prickle, as he tries not to stare at Jim’s mouth.

“I followed you into this mess. I'm damn well following you out of it, too. And that's means no dying on me, you hear? Goes for eating and sleeping enough, as much as for not runnin' into any hails of bullets.”

“OK.”

“OK?” _Just like that?_

Jim nods, his expression solemn. “I'll try. For you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my self indulgence, double thank you if you comment :) This might end up being a series of slow-burn S5 UST, because I do love a good apocalypse scenario! x


End file.
